on WORLDVIEWS
WHAT IS A WORLDVIEW?
the definition of WORLDVIEW is
“a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world- the way an individual or society/culture perceives and interprets the world around them.”
-Oxford Online Dictionary
in this LESSON we’ll go over:
-meaning and impact of WORLDVIEW
-how one is learned
-the two we’ll study (Indigenous and Settler Colonial)
If someone thinks people are mostly kind, that’s part of their worldview.
someone else might think people are always dangerous and that they have to be ready to fight everyone all the time.
These differing worldview impact how people move through the world.
Someone’s different worldview isn’t inherently WRONG, just different.
An woman of Filipino descent living on country in “Australia” might have a different understanding of the world than a Nigerian man living in Lagos.
Thinking her way might actually be wrong about Lagos. He knows the world to be different from how she knows the world. neither are “wrong”.
What I’ve learned traveling is that most cultures do some things well and some things weirdly. maybe even badly.
They’re usually trying to be “good”, even when they’re trying to be “good” at being “bad” (this comes up later when we feel White shame).
People often adapt what they think and do according to the environment
(or to avoid the environment).
You can look at something to judge it, or to understand it.
JUDGING is saying I’m from a culture where marriage is one man and one woman who are in romantic love so I think polygamy is terrible and would never want a polygamous marriage.
UNDERSTANDING is being able to say - “well if I was from here what would I think of polygamy?”
if a 45-year-old man bought me when I was 14, I would probably be, in some ways, happy to have sister-wives. To have people for companionship, to teach me, to support each other with labor.
I left behind my idea about what’s good and bad
to get into being inside the mindframe and seeing options from there.
in this course we’ll be learning about ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE by creating a bridge to it framed with KNOWLEDGE. (see diagram)
JOURNAL QUESTION:
-LIST AND DESCRIBE 5 IDEAS THAT HELP FORM YOUR WORLDVIEW.
WORLDVIEW IMPACTS POLICIES and social systems
(eg how labor is organized)
we often argue FOR a capitalist system like we currently have,
where people have to labor to earn food and shelter,
saying people won’t work if they’re not desperate.
However, in many cultures, “Indigenous” included,
people are taught to consider working for the collective a responsibility
and would do it if not threatened with starvation.
The idea about how people fundamentally are
creates the excuse for the law and the system.
WANT MORE INFORMATION to PAD YOUR IDEA OF “WORLDVIEW”?
when you’re learning about something new, it’s best to take in a lot of information about it.
You can’t not watch anything or do anything and get it.
when I was in Uni and learning about something like Science Fiction English, a subject that was new to me, I watched documentaries about it to get visuals, learn about the people who like it, and absorb different info.
My teacher provided me a map of the course, a framework to understand the topic, and whichever “places” I wanted to explore more I did. the opposite of an AI summary.
SO. with all KYLEY DIAMOND work, this is encouraged.
Sometimes, because online is frustrating and I can’t read the mind of every person who engages with my “content”, I provide kind of bare bones.
you will have to learn to ask questions, which is encouraged.
Or, you can turn to other educators - if you wanted to learn more about the concept of a “Worldview” so your knowing is really solid,
you could read or watch some stuff on WORLDVIEWS by people trained in Sociology or Anthropology, maybe Human Geography.
one place to start is this MASTERCLASS BLOG on WHAT IS A WORLDVIEW?
a Worldview is learned - sometimes explicitly, others implicitly (purposely and subtly).
A Scientific or English worldview is purposely taught -
we want you to view the world through Science or Math or English so we force you to sit and learn those things.
we also learn things in a more subtle way- adults never cry around you so you don’t think it’s normal to cry.
our worldview is shaped by what we are surrounded by-
the more Indigenous content you surround yourself with the more you’ll get it.
Taking in a lot of information about the Indigenous Worldview through music, image, food, experience, etc, is important to learning how to think from inside because you want to get inside the ideology.
I will provide links in this course and will continue to update A RESOURCE PAGEhere.
TWO WORLDVIEWS
VIBEOLOGY, my emotional intelligence work, is referenced occasionally through this course because it’s easier for me.
in it there’s two main worldviews - SURVIVAL MODE and WHOLE.
unlike Science, VIBEOLOGY doesn’t split everything apart it lumps it all together.
so.
we can align an INDIGENOUS WORLDVIEW with the WHOLE diagram, and
SURVIVAL MODE, on the left, is the SETTLER COLONIAL mindframe, which lumps it alongside concepts like White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Capitalism, Heteronormativity, Able-body/mind, CIS-gender, etc.
not all White people = Settler Colonial mindframe, we’ll get into Indigenous Europe later.
TAKE SOME TIME AND BRAINSTORM
brainstorm ideas you know about the current state of SETTLER COLONIAL mindframe/society.
Write down some of your own and share with your group.
DO NOT chatbot search it and just write what comes up- think about examples relevant to your life. then it hooks into your brain.
example:
to try to teach me Survival Mode people were always like “it’s nature! that’s what nature is like!”
nature documentaries show NATURE IS FIERCE! EAT OR BE EATEN!
they show an animal for 5 minutes.
4 of those minutes the animal is hunting.
we walk away thinking this animal hunts all the time, it must be dangerous for everyone to be around this animal.
but then they explain the animal hunts for 10 minutes every 2 days.
they spent 99% of their time sleeping and farting.
so actually you’re almost always safe around that animal. This animal isn’t a sociopath tracking every vulnerable creature in the woods. (except that one bear in Banff)
this Survival Mode way of thinking makes nature seem much more dangerous than it is.
THE INTERNET
has cranked up
Survival Mode mindframe!
-stuck in looping ideas from algorithm
-pushes fear and dopamine
-opens up your door to fight with strangers all day
another way to think about “perception”…
could be talking about drugs.
(which we do in another course about the Altered State experience, an altered state of perception)
Drugs are not the only way to reach an altered state, but they are a way.
and. most people understand drugs change how you interpret the world, much like a different perception created by a worldview.
I talk about GETTING INTO an Indigenous Worldview.
a great example for GETTING INTO altered states of different drugs is THIS EXPERIMENT by Brian Lewis Saunders.
he takes different drugs and draws a self-portrait on each one, showing those of us with control issues who would probably never take these drugs what each drug would feel like.
different drugs changed how he saw himself, just like a different outlook/worldview can.
through him we can see some drugs make everything cartoony and colorful and which drugs make everything harsh and jagged.
Same with worldviews- different ways of thinking about how we measure reality can shape how we feel about it.
Go through it with your friends and talk about which drugs you’d like to try one day! (joking!!! but. all the soft ones).
End of Lesson 01.
Can you…
explain what a worldview is
and how it shapes
the world you live in